I wanted to check in with the community about something that happened recently and see if others have had similar experiences.
Has anyone here ever been denied a review because the host’s membership expired during the sit?
In my case, the sit was fully confirmed and all communication took place through the platform. I completed the sit in good faith — only to find out afterwards that, because the host didn’t renew their membership partway through, they were no longer able to leave me a review.
This feels quite unfair, as it penalises the sitter for something completely outside our control. We aren’t notified if a host’s membership is about to lapse, yet the consequences fall entirely on us — including losing a review we’ve genuinely earned.
I’m also looking into whether this might conflict with basic UK consumer protection principles around fair treatment and transparency. It seems questionable that a platform can confirm a sit, assure both parties it is legitimate, but then prevent the sitter from receiving a review because of changes to the host’s membership status — something the sitter has no visibility or responsibility over.
I’d really appreciate hearing:
• Has this happened to you?
• How do you feel about this policy?
• Do you think it’s fair for sitters to bear the consequences of a host’s membership lapsing mid-sit?
Thanks in advance for sharing your experiences — I think it’s important that we look at these edge cases together, especially with the platform evolving and new membership requirements coming in next year.
I am sorry to hear that and I don’t have any personal experience to share. It makes sense however that the host would not be able to leave a review. In most cases, when someone’s membership lapses for whatever type of site, they are usually not able to access the full range of features or sometimes even get into their account at all. For example, when I let my membership lapse on a couple of housesitting sites, I was able to access my full dashboard and do a few things like edit my profile, but obviously could not apply to sits.
I don’t know much about website design and such, so I don’t know whether it would be possible to still allow them access to the review feature even if their membership is not active, but even if it was, THS has clearly not set it up that way.
It can’t hurt to make a suggestion that reviews should still be able to be submitted but other than that, I don’t think there is much you can do. I do think however that a situation like this is pretty rare so I wouldn’t worry about it happening on a regular basis. I have been sitting since 2014 and never had it happen.
I haven’t experienced this myself, but I’m wondering whether sitter protection plans still apply if the host’s membership lapses during a sit. For example, if their membership expired on day 2 of your sit and they decided to return home early on day 4, would the sit cancellation protection still cover you?
I had something similar - a sitter’s membership ended right after she completed a sit at my house. She could not, therefore, leave a review for me. I mention this in my listing to explain why there is no review from one sitter.
In your situation, the HO could leave you a reference instead of a review. References come from non-THS members.
That’s very disappointing for you @matthew1. I hope you still enjoyed the sit. All you can do is request a reference through the website to these owners. I wonder if they realised by not renewing that your obligations to them and the pets were void? Hopefully they had a hard copy of their Welcome Guide as you would have lost access to that on the site.
I think this is pretty poor. No-one should be able to host/sit without a valid membership for the full duration of the dates, as otherwise the T&Cs dont apply. I appreciate that sometimes dates are planned ahead (outside of the current membership period) but there should be some way of requiring renewal before the sit start and cancelling the sit for both parties if one or other hasnt renewed.
